233 Large-Scale Standardized Phenotyping of Apple in RosBREED K. Evans and Y. Guan Washington State University Tree Fruit Research and Extension Center 1100 N. Western Ave, Wenatchee, WA USA J. Luby, M. Clark and C. Schmitz University of Minnesota 342 Alderman Hall, 1970 Folwell Avenue St. Paul, MN USA S. Brown and B. Orcheski Cornell University USDA ARS, 630 W. North Street Geneva, NY USA C. Peace Dept. Hort. & Landscape Architecture Washington State University PO Box 646414, Pullman, WA USA E. van de Weg Plant Research International PO Box 16, 6700 AA Wageningen The Netherlands A. Iezzoni Department of Horticulture Michigan State University East Lansing, MI USA Keywords: fruit quality, pedigree-based analysis, marker-assisted breeding Abstract The USDA - Specialty Crop Research Initiative-funded RosBREED project is focused on enabling marker-assisted breeding in the Rosaceae. New molecular tools for selection need to be developed before this technology will be widely accepted and applied to apple breeding programs. As well as detailed genotypic data of inter- related progenies, parents and ancestor cultivars, fully descriptive phenotypic data also need to be collected. For apple, fruit phenotyping begins at harvest, followed by 10 and 20 weeks regular storage, each followed by 7 days shelf life at room temperature. The standardized phenotyping protocols agreed by breeding teams in Washington, Minnesota and New York states will be presented in this paper. INTRODUCTION Considerable advances have been made over recent years in the development of genetic maps and DNA markers for many of the economically important edible rosaceous crops (e.g., apple, pear, peach, cherry, strawberry and raspberry) and full genome sequences have recently been prepared for both apple (Velasco et al., 2010) and peach (Sosinski et al., unpublished data). However so far in the USA, there has been little practical application of this information by breeders in crop improvement programs. The RosBREED project was initiated in September 2009, following funding from the USDA’s Specialty Crop Research Initiative, to ‘bridge the chasm’ between genomics research and practical rosaceous crop breeding programs and thus enable marker-assisted breeding (Iezzoni et al., 2010). RosBREED has 12 demonstration breeding programs, three apple programs (Washington State University, University of Minnesota and Cornell University), four peach programs (Clemson University, University of Arkansas, Texas A&M and University of California Davis), three strawberry programs (Michigan State University, University of New Hampshire and USDA-ARS Corvallis), one tart cherry program (Michigan State University) and one sweet cherry program (Washington State University). DNA markers linked to quantitative fruit quality traits are scarce. RosBREED is developing crop-specific single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genome scan platforms, with resolution of at least one SNP marker every 5 cM in any random cross, which can be used with a Pedigree-Based Analysis approach (van de Weg et al., 2004). In order to link these SNPs to fruit quality traits, a comprehensive program of phenotyping is required. A Proc. 4 th International Conference Postharvest Unlimited 2011 Eds.: P.M.A. Toivonen et al. Acta Hort. 945, ISHS 2012